Friday.

Today has been an excellent day. We woke up early and drove into Whakatane with my sister, and stopped at a cafe to grab breakfast. The sun has been shining for a couple of days. There is still a wintery chill in the air, but nothing required the scarves and hats I’ve seen some of the locals sporting. Anyway, breakfast was good, and it was nice to have a little outing with my sister and Toria, since we’re the hip young things of the bunch. ‘pon our return Toria got the two goats my sister is looking after (Betty and Sneaky) out in the garden for a runaround before we trotted off for a spot of tennis and a nice stroll back down the beach to the homestead. The water was bloody freezing, but incredibly clear, I saw a big crab floating around my feet and shat it a little bit. I went all native on the way home and walked back with barefoot, Toria got cramp and I left her sitting on the side of road massaging her feet. We’re now back home with the fire popping and the neighbours cat in his favourite position atop Toria’s legs.

We’re hoping that over the weekend we’ll go back up to Awakeri Springs, where there is a natural hot spring feeding into some spa/Jacuzzi bath things and a couple of heated pools. We went there with my mum and dad yesterday and it was awesome, the water is beautifully hot, and full of salty, sulphuric goodness. We all left in far more relaxed states than we arrived in. Zoë is keen to go over the weekend, so we’ll probably tag along for the ride, unless the meeker of the two goats dies, in which case Sunday might be declared a day of mourning, which used to mean leaving the curtains closed all day and not going out, I’m not sure if the same rules apply in New Zealand as did in Nuneaton.

Stu.